August Strindberg is known as ‘the mad inventor of modern theatre’. His Miss Julie was the first ‘pyschodrama’ and its lead role is one that all the great actresses aspire to play. More than most, Strindberg based a lot of his writing on his own life. Sue Prideaux became fascinated by his life when she was researching her previous book, Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream. She portrays Strindberg’s dramatic and chaotic life in fin-de-siècle Paris and Berlin where he would work and debate with the likes of Munch, Paul Gaughin and Frank Wedekind. And Prideaux reveals for the first time the real people on whom the characters in Miss Julie were based and the suicide that inspired the play’s dramatic ending.